Does Windows 7 have the famous 2TB limit? | The Coffeehouse

Dodo
I'm your creativity creator™ :)

Unlike Windows Vista, Windows 7 uses two partitions in the standard configuration. A 100MB boot partition and usually the rest of the drive as the system partition.

Windows Vista has the KB946557 issue. Does this issue arise from INT13 support? I don't have an EFI BIOS for GPT boot support on my X58 chipset based mainboard.

What I'd like to know is, if Windows 7 can boot and run if the system partition is larger than 2TB. Call me crazy, but I'm running out of space and would need to expand it. Smiley

CreamFilling512

It would have the same limitations, the problem is BIOS is from the 1970s. We need more EFI support in PCs.

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In reply to CreamFilling512

#Nov 5th @ 6:38 PM

Actually, if they're putting enough of the bootloader on the 100 MB boot partition, they could easily avoid the 2TB problem... once Windows takes over managing disk I/O, BIOS limitations are no longer relevant.

I do the same sort of thing to avoid the 24-bit LBA BIOS bug (can't read disks > 137 GB) in Linux. 200 MB boot partition with my kernel and initrd, which is enough to bring Linux to a point where it can read from the high portion of the disk.

spivonious

Can you buy a disk >2TB?

I'm sure you will be able to eventually, but I'd feel much safer with two 1.5TB disks, so if one fails I'm not completely up the creek.

AndyC

In reply to spivonious

#Nov 6th @ 6:48 AM

The "System" partition (i.e. the one with NTLDR) on a Windows 7 install is a seperate 100MB hidden partition, so you shouldn't ever hit this limit. I suspect this may well be the exact reason for this behaviour under Windows 7.

Sadly I don't have a spare 2TB+ RAID array handy to try it out on. Tongue Out

dahat

While I've not tested it... I'd wager good money that you are still limited to a ~2tb max for a the physical boot drive in the system on a non EFI system... not because of int13... but because of MBR.

This does mean that if you go buy a 3TB hard drive tomorrow and try to use it as your system's boot drive... you will only be able to use/see the first 2TB given your need to use MBR to partition it (unless you've got EFI under the hood)... but it still could be added to the system as a secondary drive and used fully when partitioned with GPT.

LeoDavidson

In reply to AndyC

#Nov 6th @ 7:22 AM

Where does NTLDR live if there isn't a recovery partition? On the main system drive?

My machine doesn't have a recovery partition (I guess due to the way I partitioned the disk during setup; I didn't prevent it being created on purpose). I've seen it on others, though.

AndyC

In reply to LeoDavidson

#Nov 6th @ 7:53 AM

NTLDR will always live on the System partition, which will be the main (Boot) partition if that's the only one. Note that if you use the Windows 7 partitioning tool during installation it'll create that partition for you unless you have a very small hard drive (I didn't seem to get it on my netbook)

Dodo
I'm your creativity creator™ :)

In reply to dahat

#Nov 6th @ 7:38 AM

Well, you can create partitions larger than 2TB using MBR. That definitely works with either the last partition or a single partition by spanning to the end of the drive. Partitions just can't start beyond 2TiB.